


Nursing on a Poison

by farfarawaygirl



Category: Chicago Fire, One Chicago
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Firefighters, Fools in Love, dangerous jobs, emt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21968584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farfarawaygirl/pseuds/farfarawaygirl
Summary: It’s New Year’s Eve, and Matt Casey is not altogether surprise by who was the highlight of his year.
Relationships: Sylvie Brett/Matthew Casey
Comments: 42
Kudos: 183





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes my own.
> 
> Obviously, I do not own these characters, or the Matt and Gabby hook-up would not have happened.
> 
> #makebrettseyhappen

“Ten! Nine! Eight!” Matt joins in, Herrmann slapping him in the shoulder as he makes his way towards Cindy; everyone it seems has someone toring the New Years in with. 

Beside him Mouch and Trudy are raising their glasses high, sparkle crowns perched on their greying heads. 

“Seven!”

Matt steps back allowing Gallo to slide across the floor towards his red headed date. She throws her arms around his neck and begins to kiss him, seconds early.

“Six!”

Stella and Kelly are glazing only at each other, wrapped arms around each other’s waists. 

“Five!”

Boden is pouring champagne into the glasses tilted towards him, laughing as it drips down in the countertop. 

“Four!”

Across the room someone sets off a popper, spraying confetti and making other shriek. 

“Three!”

He wasn’t really aware of it until that moment, but he knows who he wants to ring the New Years in with. 

“Two!”

With a fleeting sense of pain Matt scans the room, eyes passing over Foster as she pounds on Capp’s shoulders. 

“One!”

The ball drops, the room explodes.

People are shouting, “happy new year!”, the air is rife with confetti and for a single moment the room seems to part in front of him. Near the staircase, little Terence in her arms, face upturned is Sylvie. She reaches out a hand and grabs for the glittering dust floating by, it catches on her face and hair. 

Someone jostles his shoulder, pounding a New Years tattoo into him, but he keeps his eyes on Sylvie. Her blue eyes settle on him, and she sends him a smile; open mouthed and wide, she’s the best thing about his night. 

She’s the best thing about his year. 

The gap in the crowd fills up, and just like that she’s gone. 

God, he misses her. 

Ever since Gabby blew into town things between them have been off. Because she showed up, and then it was thanksgiving, and suddenly it feels like Sylvie is avoiding him. 

More than once he has felt Foster and Kidd watching him with skeptical, judging eyes. If he’s benign honest it has felt like they have been running interference, occupying Sylvie and keeping her away. 

He wishes he had asked her out last spring. Before Kyle proposed, and the roof caved in. Before she disappeared on them, and Gabby came back to Chicago to mess with his head. But he didn’t. And now it seems it might be too late. 

It’s a succession of well wishes, his crew and squad. A couple of white shirts he knows because of Boden, all of Herrmann’s kids. There are hugs, and an inordinate amount of punishing shoulder claps, and through it all he try’s to keep an eye on Sylvie as she floats through the room. 

First, she’s dancing with little Terence in her arms, then Foster joins in, and Stella. A mix of party dresses and arms. Terence is loving it, shrieking with delight. Then, she’s helping put bottles in bins, and cups in the garbage, deftly wrapping up leftovers and directing people around her. Matt helps Gallo move some furniture back into place, when he sees Sylvia blonde hair exit the front door. 

Hurrying after her, he forgets his coat and shouts her name into the dark, cold night. 

She’s exited Boden’s front garden, and is halfway down the block, a black sedan Uber waiting for her. 

“Matt?” She laughingly questions him, pulling the lapels of her tan pea coat closet together. 

Something, maybe the chill, or the beer from earlier, makes him bolder and more reckless than he’d normally be. 

“Did I do something?”

“What?”

Matt clears his throat, and steps closer. “Did I do something? Because I feel like I haven’t seen you at all since...” he falters. 

“Since gabby.” Sylvie supplies, her blue eyes are soft and kind in the streetlight. 

Matt nods. 

“You’re not wearing your coat. You must be freezing.”

“Sylvie, I’m sorry. If I did anything. If I...”

Once more Matt trails off uselessly. The Uber honks. It really is cold out here. 

Sylvie half turns away, waives at the Uber driver, and before Matt knows what’s happening, she has her hands on his biceps, and is lifting her scarlet lips towards his cheek. He shivers and her kiss lands half on his lips, half on his chin. 

“Happy New Year, Matt.” Sylvie laughed, pulling away, flying down the sidewalk towards the car. 

“Sylvie!” He shouts, but the door closes and the car pulls away from the curb.


	2. French Toast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m obsessed. Join me in my hyper-fixation.

Here is the thing about working in a firehouse over the holidays: it’s a freaking shit show. People are switching and trading off shifts like it is no big deal. There are about ten thousand cookies in the lunch room at any given moment. Everyone is delirious from late nights, and bizarre calls and family drama and the sugar. It’s simultaneously the best type of chaos and very jarring. 

When Matt walks into work on the second of January he expects to see Brett and Foster at the ambo. Instead it’s a new PIC he doesn’t really know named Siegfried, and Foster who also looks less than thrilled. 

“Where’s Brett?”

“Mulhouse asked her to cover a stretch of shifts because of his wedding, so we don’t have her this shift and next one. They needed a PIC with experience.”

They make faces at each other. 

Matt waits until he is changed and the the briefing is over before he texts Sylvie. He had promised himself that today he would make things square between them. That he would erase the awkwardness. 

Matt Casey: did I piss you off so much you’ve moved houses? 

Sylvie Brett: Ha ha. 

Sylvie Brett: Yes. That’s it. 

Matt smiles at his phone. He misses her. 

Sylvie Brett: This station is so cold. I don’t even have extra sweaters here. Looks like I’m freezing for the next 23 and a half hours. 🥶

A mighty crash from the turnout room makes Matt out his phone away with a sigh and head off to investigate. 

—-

Later that shift, they are returning from a smoke alarm call, Matt pulls out his phone again. 

Matt Casey: are you on a call?

Sylvie Brett: We just got back. Paperwork for dayysssss! 

“ Hey, Kidd,”

“Captain?”

“We’re making a detour.”

She quirks a brow when he tells her where, and from the back Gallo and Mouch exchange muffled words, but Casey can’t hear them, and frankly he doesn’t really care. It only takes a few minutes for them to reach their destination. The yard is full of people wrapping hoses, but there is no silvery blonde around them. 

The rig pulls to a stop, Stella taps the horn twice, and from the ambulance bay Sylvie steps out. She’s in her paramedic uniform, a scarf around her neck and a beanie on her head. She’s bundled up in the navy standard issue puffer coat. Matt has no doubt that she is freezing, all the bays are open for a clean out, and it’s January in Chicago. The whole house must be sub zero. 

Still in his full turn out gear Matt jumps from his seat, and nods at his fellow firefighters as he makes his way to Sylvie. 

“Matt Casey, what has you in my neck of the woods?”

She teasing him. 

He can’t help but smile back.

“Can you do me a favour?”

Sylvie nods, good natured and amused. 

“Hold this.”

Matt tosses his turn out coat to her, and unzips his 51 sweater. The cold hits him full force in just his white collared shirt, but her knowing grin makes it worth it. Stepping closer he swings the sweater around her, down coat and all, pulling her into his bubble for one charged moment before he steps back. She’s still clutching his turn out coat, chin resting on the charred material, face radiant with mirth. 

“You brought me a sweater.”

God, he loves her smile. 

“I brought you my sweater.” She nods, pressing his turn out coat into his chest, forcing him to put it on. “My 51 sweater, that I am very attached to. So you remember when you came from.”

As they’ve talked, she pulled her arms through the sleeves and zip it up, over her coat, and scarf, all the way to her chin. 

“Can’t have our PIC turning to an icicle.”

They just stand there, bashful smiles in place while they look at each other. 

“Do you want to go for breakfast when this shift is over?”

Sylvie has always been brave where he has faltered, it’s not really a surprise that she’s the one who asks. 

“Yeah. I would.”

Behind then Kidd honks again, when they look over, Mouch and Gallo are hanging out the windows, shit eating grins in place. 

“I’ll let you go.”

Casey walks backwards. 

“I’ll see you soon, then.”

Brett is waving, her arm high in the air, shaking her head at him even as she focusses on Kidd and the guys on trucks. 

Hauling himself back up into the cab, he meets Kidd’s amused expression with a half smile. 

“She was cold.”

Kidd mumbles something under her breath as they pull away, and if it sounds like ‘cold my ass’, Casey is just going to ignore it. He’s got breakfast to think about. Waffles and whipped cream, and Sylvie Brett. 

He always was a breakfast guy. 

——- 

Matt Casey: meet me at the Starbucks on S. Michigan, the one by the Art Institute

Sylvie Brett: Starbucks? 

Matt Casey: trust me. 

———

Matt spots her walking down the sidewalk, a group of private school kids in front of her. Sylvie is digging in her purse for something, dodging a stroller Matt places himself right in front of her. When she crashes into him, he lets his arms slide around her waist, a started cough emerges from her, before she recognizes him and sort of melts in his arms. The cold has made her nose strawberry red, her eyes are bright blue against her black coat. 

There is a possibility he is trouble. 

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

His arms are still around her waist. Sylvie pushes closer, forgets about what she looking for in her purse, rest her arms on his and looks up at him. 

“Breakfast?”

“I’m starving.”

“Follow me.”

They talk about their shift as they stroll down the block, it’s cold, but not windy, good weather to talk in. As they walk Matt feels their gloved hands brush against each other. It sends an electric jolt up to his shoulder each time. 

“West Egg Cafe?”

Sylvie is genuinely elated, sending Matt a small smile, it makes him warm despite the cold. Filling him up with the desire to make Sylvie smile like that everyday, knowing he could want that forever if he let himself. 

“We are so splitting the fruit French Toast!”

Breakfast is easy. They split the French Toast, and Sylvie steals some of his omelet, and shares her yogurt parfait. There is so hesitation, or awkwardness. Over the syrupy carbs they sip coffee and talk about childhood and work. It’s simple. It’s the most fun Matt’s had in ages. 

It’s nearly noon by the time they leave, full of sugar and warm, caffeinated and buzzing with possibility. Matt pays the bill, while Sylvie is in the washroom and meets her at the entrance with her coat and bag. 

“Can I walk you to the train?”

Sylvie nods. 

Snow is starting to drift down on the sidewalk, Matt hesitates for a half second then throws his arm around her shoulders and draws Sylvie close. She was the brave one earlier, it’s his turn now. 

“Can I take you out on a proper date next weekend?”

“French Toast isn’t a proper date?”

“I mean,” Matt begins, stopping and turning her to face him, “I’d like to pick you up and take you out.”

“You did pay for breakfast.”

She’s grinning. He wants to kiss her. 

“Sylvie, I like you.”

Her smile has changed, it’s mostly in her eyes now. 

“Matt, I like you.”

“So that’s settled, then. Next Saturday. Dinner, a date, the whole thing.”

Instead of answering Sylvie surprises him again, she uses her gloved hands to tug his face down to her, presses their lips together. She tastes like the coffee and sugar they just ate. Her lips are smooth and cold from the winters air. They’re kissing in the snow on a street in Chicago and he never wants to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stick around!


	3. I’ve Got a Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can’t stop thinking of ways for these fools to fall in love.

“Nice sweater.”

Sylvie jumps, spilling coffee grounds on the counter. She’s wearing Matt’s sweater, the one that definitely still smells like smoke and him and maybe a little sweat, and attempting to clean up after making a pot off coffee. Cruz is behind her, arms crossed, face judging as he watches. 

“Good Morning, Joe.”

It’s 5 AM and Sylvie is not ready for this. 

She came home from her date with Matt, he came with her, walked her right to the door, kissed her sweetly one last time and left. Which meant basically an extra hour of transit for him. And that Sylvie barely slept a wink. 

When she couldn’t sleep she went to an afternoon spin class. When she got home and still couldn’t sleep washed her hair and dried it. She took a melatonin, and laid in her bed staring at the ceiling and freaking out. 

She had kissed Matt. 

Several times. 

He has said he liked her. She had said she liked him. 

She kept thinking of the feeling of his knee pressed into hers under the table. Of his gloved hands in hers. The way Matt had pressed her to the door when he brought her home. The way he’d asked her out. 

Sylvie wanted to scream. Or not scream, but maybe jump on her bed? Or out the window. Or into Lake Michigan. Or maybe throw up. 

How could things feel so natural? He’d been her pseudo brother-in-law while she dated Antonio and he was with Gabby. She’s been to his wedding. He had watched her get engaged. 

What would happen if Gabby just blew back into town? 

Sylvie cleaned the kitchen. She baked brownies and tried to read a book. She watched the clock. Sometime after midnight she fell asleep in the couch, woke up a fire truck passed below and made it to her bed. Her alarm had woken her at 4:45. 

Coffee and contemplation. 

Which brought her into the kitchen, so she could be judged by Joe. 

“I said nice sweater.”

“Nice face.”

Chloe laughed from behind Joe. 

“What’s happening?”

“Yeah, Sylvie, anything you want to tell us? Your friends and roommates? Your confidants?”

Sylvie added cream to her mug. Stirred slowly. Slipped evenly. 

“Matt dropped off a sweater because I was cold.”

“Matt?” Chloe asked, pouring her own mug, “Captain Casey, Matt?”

Joe made a noise that indicates agreement, or that he was a baby seal, nodding his head. 

“I have to get ready for work.”

Sylvie made her way past Chloe, but stopped in front of Joe’s outstretched arm, looking up at him. 

“Be careful with my friend.” He said, giving her a look. “Just to clarify, you, are my friend in the scenario.”

“And my bridesmaid,” added Chloe. 

Sylvie whipped around, spilling hot coffee on her hands and legs, screaming in pain and delight. 

“I am? I am!”

Chloe hugged Sylvie, heedless of the coffee, adding to the scream. 

“Will you need a plus one for the wedding?”

“Joe!” Sylvie and Chloe admonished, mid hug, and promptly ignored his reply. 

——-

Kidd had already made coffee. Which was nice, but also bad. Nice because, coffee. Bad because, coffee made by Kidd was practically a lethal weapon. This was one of the drawbacks of Severide working a 9-5, he sleeps in and Kidd makes coffee. 

“Do I need to make threats, or should I leave it to the guys?”

“How about I give you a ride to work, and we assume that I know what happens if I displease you.”

Kidd smiles. 

“Smart man, Captain. Makes a girl hopeful.”

——

Sylvie Brett: Our friends are weird. 

Matt Casey: do you like jazz?

Sylvie Brett: So, your just going to ignore the friend thing? 

Matt Casey: I assumed you already knew they were weird. 

Sylvie Brett: I assumed you knew to always agree with me. 

Matt Casey: my bad. They are weird. 

Sylvie Brett: If I said I was hungry, would you bring me some of that French Toast? 

“You’re smiling at your phone.”

Matt looked up and saw Cruz watching him. 

“Cruz.”

“Do we need to have a talk?”

The chair scraped against the floor as Matt stood up. Joe Cruz was a good man. Matt liked that he was looking out for Sylvie. 

“No,” Some of the tension drained from Cruz’s shoulders, “one, Stella beat you to it, and two, I’m not screwing this one up.”

They don’t get to finish the conversation, because the bell goes off and Squad 3 is called off to a car accident. He goes back to texting Sylvie. 

———

Firefighting in general is a hurry up and wait kind of job. Some shifts the calls don’t stop. Some shifts there are just stretches of time when the minutes are slower. 

Today’s a slow day. Boden has assigned cleaning task, which makes the moments go by even slower. Mouch and Kidd are doing an inventory of the rig, Casey has Gallo and Ritter running a drill where Herrmann basically makes it as difficult to carry him as possible. Cruz, Capp and Tony are cleaning their water rescue gear while their interim Lieutenant catches up on paper work. 

A slow day. 

Ambo keeps getting called out, the roads are icy, but truck, squad and engine are just waiting. 

Sylvie is not texting back, so Matt assumes she is as busy as Foster and Siegfried. Which is fine, he knows she’s great at her job, expect ever since lunch he’s felt, not uneasy, but like maybe something is not right. He keeps telling himself to calm down. Reminds himself that Sylvie is fine, just busy. Never the less he finds reasons to check the scanner through this shift. 

When Matt hears Sylvie’s voice it makes him feel warm. Her checking in with command. Her radioing into Lakeshore with updates. 

Around 2 AM he wakes up on his cot, and that feeling is back. The house is quiet as he makes his way to the radio, where he finds Boden sitting, coffee mug in hand as he fiddled with his laptop. 

“I’ve got a feeling.”

Matt tilts his head, Boden is not a ‘feelings’ guy. 

“I’ve had it all day. Can’t seem to shake that we need to be listening to the radio tonight.”

“I’ve felt the same all day,” Casey signs, leans against the desk and cracks his neck, “today’s been off.”

The chief nods, rest his head in one crooked hand, focusing on the radio. 

They listen to a dispatch for a fire truck on Wabash. Boden switched channels, and they hear an Ambo give an ETA to med. twenty minutes after Casey joined Boden Cruz and Gallo pull up chairs. 

“Can’t sleep.”

At 3:30 on the nose a distress signal goes out, House 89 is called out, truck, engine and ambo. That’s Sylvie’s rig. It’s a car accident, drive into a house. Kidd, Herrmann and Mouch have joined the group, perching on an odd assortment of stools and a milk crate. Outside the rain starts to fall. 

It’s 3:52 when Brett’s voice comes across the radio, “Ambo 89 requesting immediate back up, more casualties than anticipated. Life support needed.”

There is a beat of calm, cool silence, and then the bells rings, the boots hit the floor and everyone falls into the smooth rhythm they’ve trained for. Cruz claps him on the shoulder, passing Casey as he heads to Squad. Kidd’s knuckles are white on the wheel as they take corners, her mouth a tight, firm line. Casey feels the tension building up his spin, the adrenaline pounding in his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, we know she’ll make it, but, will she make it?


	4. Chaos

It’s chaos from the start. 

When they got to the scene all Sylvie could think of was the time that helicopter came down on the building. How she and Mills had been working together, how bad it was. The first two people she finds are DOA. 89 works without a squad, so it’s ambo and a truck, and the odds are stacked against them. She directs triage, but knows she needs to call it in. 

The black SUV was full, seven adults, and the house it went into seems to be teaming with people. It made a mess of the street on its way into the house, ploughing through the street. The lieutenant from 89 is yelling for more cribbing, struggling to get close enough to turn off the car. 

“Brett,” he shouts, his name is Moore, “I can hear crying from the house! Get inside and see what’s happening!”

Sylvie nods to her partner, Dina Fleming, and moves around the chaos to the house. The front door in open, a woman dressed in a pair of pyjamas is sitting in the stoop, blanking looking out. 

“Hi, my names Sylvie, are you hurt?”

She hears the screams from inside the house. 

“Can you hear me?” Dina steps up, talking to the women while Sylvie goes inside, from down the block Sylvie hears the familiar sirens of an other rig, and a few more Ambo’s. 

“Hello? I’m the CFD, if you hear me, call out!”

It’s definitely a child crying. 

The car tires are still spinning, she can hear the desperation in Moore’s voice. Feels the vibrations through the floor. The crying is coming from the other side of a door off the kitchen. Sylvie fries the handle. It’s stuck. She puts her shoulder into it, pushing until it pops open. A wardrobe has fallen over, stopped from hitting the floor by a bed frame. 

The crying stops, then sputters to life, louder and more insistent. 

Sylvie drops to her knees, grabbing her radio on the way down, “I need a firefighter assist in the house.”

Around her the walls creak. 

“I’m here to help, can you tell me where you are?”

There’s no reply, so Sylvie follows the cry, scrambling forward, pulling up the sheets, finding a small child under the bed. He blinks back at her. 

There’s this moment of eerie calm when Sylvie knows exactly what is going to happen before it does. She reacts, hitting the ground hard and pulling at the boy just as the floors whine and buckle, the sound of a car engine revving and wood splintering overwhelms her. The small boy is pressed to her side when the floor disappears beneath them, sending them and the bed crashing down. 

The first thing that lands on them is the mattress, soft, and then unending pressure as everything else follows. Sylvie throw up her left arm, trying to keep the debris elevated as it settles, clutching the boy to her right. It’s noisy and dark and so, so, loud. There’s the snap of wood, and crunch of metal, human voices pitching up and down, and then the smell of fuel is jarringly overwhelming. 

It’s the hiccuping sobs of the boy that ground her. 

“Are you okay?”

Obviously not. Neither of them is okay, in the true sense of the word. 

His nose is pressed under her ear, the weight of the debris on top of them is making her arm shake. Sylvie feels the first real bubble of panic in her chest. This is just like the mattress fire, when the roof came down, and her arm was fractured, where Otis... Sylvie can’t think of that. 

He ears are ringing. Her body aches. 

“Are we going to die?”

Those are the first words the little boy says. 

“No. There’s a whole truck of firefighter out there, who are going to save us.”

Her radio is buzzing, cracking with static, but Sylvie can’t move her left arm, it’s creating a tent for them, and she doesn’t want to bring it down. Slowly, experimentally, Sylvie moves her right foot, meeting something solid. Then her left, the same thing. 

The little boy is crying again. 

“My name is Sylvie, what’s yours?”

Keep him talking. Make an action plan. 

Over the roaring her ears she hears someone call her name. It could be Moore. 

“Otis.”

“What?” Sylvie gasps. 

“My name is Otis.”

“That’s one of my best friends name.” The words come easy. 

“Otis, I need your help,” Sylvie keeps her voice steady, “can you hear my radio?”

“It’s making that weird noise?”

Otis’s breath has slowed a little, now that he’s not crying, something above them shifts and the mattress sags down a little. 

“Can you find it in the dark?”

His arms pat down her front, tugging the radio out from between them, increasing it volume. 

“Can you bring it up by my head?”

Otis helps her, wiggling in the small bubble of space them have, kneeing her once in the side, making stars dance across Sylvie’s eyes even in the dark. 

Laboriously Sylvie works her right hand free, pushing upwards with her elbow, grasping the radio one handed she feels for the button. 

“Mayday, mayday, this is Brett, I was in the south bedroom when the floor collapsed. I have one tender aged child trapped with me.”

The normal static of transmission is missing, Sylvie feels along the side, it’s cracked, and wiring is missing. 

“Otis, can you help me shout? We need some help, and they need to hear us.”

He nods into her neck, face damp and sticky, and it feels Sylvie with a moment of pure panic, that doesn’t feel like snot. It feels like blood. 

“Otis, are you hurting?”

This time there is no nod. 

———

Boden’a initial survey of the scene tells him that somewhere along the way Moore lost control of the situation. So, Boden takes it. 

“Moore,” he bellows, “I need a full report, what happened?”

Moore’s grey eyes are hectic in the flashing light. 

“We got the damn car turned off, but the floor gave out, one of my guys is trapped down there and I can’t find my damn PIC.”

That icy feeling is back. 

“What?” It’s Casey, coming in hot. “You can’t find your PIC?”

Moore has the decency to look abashed. A firefighter about Gallo’s age steps forward, he’s sporting wrapped arm, and the dust on his uniform shows he was close to the car when it went down. 

“She’s not on the radio, but Fleming said she was in the house when the floor went down.”

There’s no time for fighting. 

“I need ropes, cribbing, you,” Boden pointed at the firefighter who had given them the news, “show us where you last saw Brett.”

Casey feels that bad feeling from before grow and spread from the back of his mind to a bitter taste in his mouth. It sharpens his focus. Makes his muscles ache, and his heart pound faster. There is so much left to say. 

Gallo and Ritter worked to set up a flood lamp, which showed off how dire things were. A two story house, the front room demolished, a gaping hole that displayed a black SUV in the basement and the walls and floor jutting angrily around it. 

Teams of people worked on their assigned duties. Kidd and Mouch were using cribbing and poles to help secure the second story, three firefighters from 89 were following their directions. Gallo was on Casey’s hip, following his order, relaying information, staying out of trouble. They’ve been on the scene working hard for nearly 10 minutes when they first hear a cry for help. 

It muffled, and it’s Moore who hear it first. 

“Over there!”

Moore points a gloved and lurches forward with abandon, cause the rubble to tip and slide, and finally an anguished scream breaks through the dark night. It’s Sylvie’s voice. That sound haunts his dream, it’s the same inhuman sound she made when her arm was broken. 

“Sylvie!”

“Brett!”

“Call out!”

It’s a cacophony of sound, while they all react, and then a split second of stillness where she gets to respond. 

“Down here!” Her voice is broken, exhausted, terrified, “I have a victim! Help! Down here.”

Kidd, Cruz and Casey act fast, securing debris as best they can, shouting orders and reacting as they move towards the pile her voice cane from. Casey can make out an overturned wardrobe and the edge of a mattress. 

“Sylvie!” He calls again. 

“Casey?” Her voice breaks. “Matt! I’m under a mattress! Matt, I need a collar and a stokes basket.” 

A flurry of activity, Casey and Joe get anchored off on ropes that lead back to the truck, and lower themselves into the wreckage below. Carefully they shift aside things, a nights stand, a laundry basket miraculously full of folded laundry. 

“Matt,” Sylvie is crying now, “his pulse is fading. Matt!” She’s verging on hysteria. 

Cruz gets his shoulder under the lip of the wardrobe and pushes up, sending a pile of rubble away from them, and crashing into the car. The mattress trembles, and then they are grabbing it, lifting it up and revealing Sylvie below. She shaking, shock, but reacts as best she can, cradling the unconscious boy to her chest, and sobbing as she fights her way towards them. 

She gets to Cruz first, and he has the good sense to grab the boy and slip an arm under her shoulders. 

“We need a basket!” 

Sylvie is still in work mode, checking his pulse, asking for medication. 

Casey brings the basket that Herrmann lowered over, Cruz and Sylvie place him in it. 

“His name is Otis.”

Sylvie’s distress is clear. That’s also when Matt sees the state of her arm. Her left arm the one she broke in May is dripping blood down her fingers. There’s a wedge of glass that has cut through her jacket, and sliced her flesh. 

“Sylvie, your arm!” 

Matt hardly has time to react as she slumps time the ground, getting a arm around her shoulders as she goes limp. He glances over at the mattress, and sees the amount of blood. 

“We need an other basket! She’s lost a lot of blood.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I wrote the drama because I had the sweetest idea for a scene later on.
> 
> Sylvie Brett is a freaking delight.


	5. The Tension and the Slow Release

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Casey did a thing. I was not planning this...

Dawn is creeping through the windows, painting the room with a soft golden light. It catches in Sylvie’s hair creating a halo around her face. Matt reaches up and swipes some dust out of her hairline. It’s barely 7:30. 

“What happened?”

Sylvie woke up while he was studying the shell of her ear. 

“You’re awake.”

Matt uses the bed rail to pull his chair closer, picking up her left hand in his, she lets out a sound of discomfort, making him pause. 

“You saved that kid.” This cause Sylvie to smile up at him, sleepily. “Gave us all a hell of a scare doing it.”

Sylvie seems surprised as she surveys her arm. A bandage covers her from nearly wrist to elbow, clean and tightly wrapped. 

Matt watches her take in the bandage. “Twenty two stitches. You got a piece of glass stuck in your arm, lost a lot of blood.”

Sylvie hums, tightens her hand around Matt’s. 

“You pulled us out.”

“I wasn’t going to leave my best PIC in that basement.”

“Thank you.” Sylvie whispers. 

Matt can’t keep looking at her face. It’s too bright and hopeful and full of something he can’t give a name to. Instead he leans down and kisses her wrist. Kisses delicately up her arm, stopping at her shoulder and then kissing her softly presses his lips to hers. Her right hand has found the soft hair at the base of scalp, and she pets him. She presses her nose to his, fitting their foreheads together. 

Their breaths are in time, and they just rest their, together for a moment. 

“You have a concussion too.”

“Matt,” her voice is low, spoken directly into his ear, “what are you doing here?”

“The whole of 51 is here. Have been for hours.”

“What?” Sylvie exclaims, pulling back a little and taking him in. 

He is still in his turn out pants and boots, smelling of old smoke and dust in his white shirt and neck gaiter. 

“Everyone is here?” She croaks, emotions making her voice heavy. “For me?”

“Brett.” Chief Boden’s rich voice fills the space between the bed and the door, “of course we’re here, you are very important to us.”

The door way fills up with the others, Kidd and Foster pushing through to hug Sylvie. Cruz makes his way around to the side Casey is sitting on, eyes wet. 

“You scared me there Sylvie.” 

Brett is crying now, and reaches out for Cruz, pulling him down for a hug. 

“How’s the boy?”

Casey steps back and away towards the door, and under Boden’s knowing gaze. He misses the first part of Boden’s sentence as he tries to compose himself a little. 

“...end of shift we need to get back and swap out.”

“I can’t leave Sylvie here alone.”

Boden raises an eyebrow. 

“That’s why Chloe and Cindy are here.”

A whole Herrmann invasion has descended, Annabelle and Luke dragging Kenny and carrying a container of muffins. Chloe and Cindy are already plumping pillows and adjusting blankets. 

“We are going to head back to 51 and change out, next shift starts in 20 minutes.” Boden is issuing orders and directing the room, but Matt can’t take his eyes off of Sylvie just lying there in the bed. A little battered. A little bruised. 

“Casey,” Brett calls, bringing him back to her bedside, “will you be coming back?”

Her face is contorted as she studies him. 

Casey ducks down, gathering her left hand and kissing her finger tips, not answering her as he leaves the room. 

———-

He puts it off. Casey showers at the house and starts in on his paperwork, tells shift 1 lieutenant about a noise on the truck. He dawdles as he packs his bag. Makes the drive to 89 to collect Sylvie’s things. He puts her jacket and his sweater into an extra jump bag, places her purse on top. Tucks her winter boots into a plastic bag, folds her scarf on top of the purse and tucks her mittens and beanie down the side. 

Casey drives the long way back to hospital, taking a circuitous path, lost in thought and not sure why he can’t make himself go back there. He left Sylvie in that room, and he’s afraid to go back. Afraid of the look on her face after she woke up. Afraid of the concern when she asked him to return. 

Instead of going back he stops at the lake, parks and sits in his car for a moment before he gets out and looks out across the ice. 

It’s almost noon before Casey parks at the hospital, makes his way up the steps to her room, only to find it empty. A nurse tells him Sylvie was released half an hour ago. Cruz took her home. Casey feels like shit. 

Matt checks his phone when he gets back to car, three missed calls from Sylvie Brett, one from Cruz. Decisively he heads for Brett and Cruz’s apartment. It’s Chloe who opens the door, her lips pressed together in a tight line. 

“Can I help you?” She reminds him a little of Sylvie. Soft and feminine out front, and then this bite and fierceness underneath. It’s makes sense that they are friends. 

“I have Brett’s things. Her purse and keys, coat.” He holds out the bag, and nods towards it and then her. 

“Don’t you want to see her?”

Casey swallows. Quirks his lips, and shakes his head. “Nah. I’ve got,” he takes a quick breath, “I have to head to a job site.”

“Casey!” Chloe says, surprise in her voice. 

“Could you tell her I’m thinking about her?”

Cruz is standing in the doorway now too, a hard look on his face. Casey talks a step back, and then an other and turns away. 

Inside her room Sylvie pulls the covers up and over her head. 

————-

Casey stays away from his place, avoiding both Severide and Kidd. He works late on a kitchen demo he’s doing for a snowbird, heading home after midnight and back out again in the morning before Kidd or Severide wakes up. He forgot to charge his phone after it died yesterday. It’s just measure, cut, repeat, don’t think. 

Severide shows up at the job site on the second day. Deep dish in hand and pity in his eyes. Kelly doesn’t say much as he settles in, surveying the work in progress. 

“Stella’s pissed at you.”

Casey grunts. 

“Don’t shoot the messenger, but you’re back in house with them tomorrow and I thought you should know.”

Casey jerks his head towards Severide, “Brett is back tomorrow?” 

“Nah, she’s off for a few shifts. Needs time for her arm to heal up.”

Casey nods, returns to his level. 

“Cruz drove her down to Fowlerton for a few days.”

Casey does a full double take, eyebrows drawn together. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Rest? Family? Take your pick.”

“It’s just weird, because her ex-fiancé is there.”

Severide is squinting at Casey now. 

“So, do we need to discuss the elephant in the room?”

“Severide.” There’s a hint of warning in Casey voice. 

“Whatever man, I’ve just got to ask. Anyways, here’s your phone charger. Don’t be a dick.”

After Severide leave Casey waits twenty minutes before he plugs in his phone. He gives it a half an hour more before he looks at it. 

Sylvie hasn’t called. 

She did send two text messages. 

Sylvie Brett: Thank you for dropping off my things. 

And then a few hours ago;

Sylvie Brett: I’m sorry I put you in this position. We will just pretend I never asked you out. Everything can go back to how it was. 

He was supposed to take her out for their date tonight. Matt packs up his tools, sweeps up the mess at his job site and gets in his truck. He drives by her apartment, but doesn’t stop, doesn’t even look up to see if her light is on.


	6. Talk to Someone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I just really want Matt to go to therapy.

The next morning Kidd meets him in the kitchen with a unimpressed facial expression. Pours the excess coffee in the sink and walks right out the door. Looks like a great shift. 

After lunch he’s running drills with Herrmann, making the whole team sweat when Boden comes over, invites him into his office. 

“Casey, I think you should go and talk to someone.”

“What?” Casey laughs. 

“That call last week really shook you up. We all need to talk to someone every once and while. Give my guy a call.” He slides a business card over his desk. “I want to hear you made a call to him by next shift.” 

“I’m fine. Did someone say I wasn’t fine?”

Boden looks him down, eyes compassionate. 

“If you had seen your face in the hospital, you would understand.”

Casey stands up, marches towards the door. Boden stops him short by saying his name. When Casey turns around he’s holding out that business card. 

“Make the call by next shift, Matt.”

It’s the way that Boden says his name, like a father would, like a parent who is concerned would, that makes Matt listen. 

He makes the call twenty minutes later, and finds himself in sitting a stiff leather chair the next day, hands working up and down the arms, foot tapping on the carpeted floor. 

Dr. Kowalski just looks at him. 

“What brings you in today Matt?”

“I dunno.” 

Dr. Kowalski just smiles, “alright. How about you just start telling me a little about yourself then.”

A sudden image of Sylvie on that hospital bed, her arm bandaged dances across his vision. 

“I’m a Captain in the CFD,” Kowalski nods encouragingly, “my mom killed my dad. My fiancé died in a fire, my wife left me.”

Matt looks up, expecting some revulsion, but instead just sees an open expression and pen poised over paper. He’s never said those particular words in that order before, never really laid it all out there. 

“And why did you decide to come see me today?”

“I’m worried that everything I touch, goes away.”

Matt didn’t mean to say it. He didn’t even really know he felt it. Didn’t know why he hadn’t gone back to the hospital, why he had not picked up the phone or shown up at Sylvie’s apartment. But once the words are out all he can think of is Sylvie, and how he had called her into that building that fell. How he had been the one to blame for her arm breaking. 

He swallows, hard. The image of her on that stretcher keeps him up at night. 

“That’s a lot to take in. What are you afraid of losing?”

“Sylvie.”

Kowalski nods, like he knows what Matt’s talking about. Like he understands the gravity of it all. 

“And that would be a blow?”

“I don’t think I would recover from losing one more good thing.”

Honestly, Matt feels kind of sick talking about this. Feels his stomach turn uncomfortably. 

“Tell me more about Sylvie.”

It come spilling forth in an unbroken wave of words, her smile, her laugh, her compassion, her goodness. How she thought she was the blame for Gabby leaving, how she kept him afloat in a time of uncertainty. The way Sylvie felt everything so damn much. All the time, always. The way her hair looked in that morning light. How she had the courage to ask him out when he had faltered for the last year. The terror when she was being stitched up, on that arm, the one he was responsible for. The way she cared about everyone. 

“It sounds like Sylvie means a great deal to you.”

“So you understand why I can’t...” Matt let the sentence hang between them. 

“Matt, I think you understand why you can’t afford not to pursue her.”

Kowalski was watching him with grave eyes. They reminded Matt of his grandfathers, perceptive but still warm. 

Matt thought of the gun that had gone off in his face last year, how Sylvie told him he could call her any time. 

“That’s our time for today, Matt.”

Outside on the wintry street Matt started at his phone, scrolled through the contacts, hovered over her name. He pressed the outbound call button, watching her face on the contact icon. 

“You’ve reach Sylvie Brett, leave a message...”

Squeezing the warm phone to his cold ear Matt left a message. 

“Sylvie. I’m sorry.” He looked down across Wabash, watched a school bus trundle by, “I’m an idiot.”

“Please, Sylvie, if you can, please call me back. Anytime. Day or night. I’ll leave the ringer on.”

Matt disconnected the call. 

——-

His phone doesn’t ring. He’s checked the ringer and adjusted the volume about a thousand times. Matt ran drills for the team, and filed his paperwork while he’d checked the ringer. He drank coffee in the kitchen while he listened to Ritter and Gallo compare running playlists, periodically pulling out his phone to check the ringer. 

Casey attended two calls for kitchen fires and gassed up the rig. He settled into his quarters for the night, half dozing on the covers while he thought about the possibility of Sylvie reconciling with Kyle in Fowlerton. The next morning he back to see Dr. Kowalski, takes a run around the lake, and hammers away at his work site. 

On day two of being off he calls a flower stop in Fowlerton. Orders a bouquet, when the florist asks for what type of flower, he thinks of sunflowers and violets. 

“And on the card, dear?”

Matt clears his throat. 

“Call me any time.”

He pauses, thinking of all the things he has not said this last year. How Otis was here one day and gone the next. What it felt like to watch Sylvie wake up. 

“I can’t go back to how it was.”

The florist clucks her tongue, asks for his credit card info and lets Casey know the flowers will be delivered later today. 

Later that night, after working on his kitchen job Casey comes home, burritos and a bottle of tequila in hand. He places them in the kitchen counter, clearing his throat so that Kidd and Severide look over from the living room. 

“I’m an asshole.”

They just both look at him. 

“But I’m working on it.” Kidd beans at him. “So, like, eat these burritos, drink this tequila and help me figure out what to do.”

Severide gets plates and glasses, Kidd just comes up and gives him a look. 

“Your head looks better outside of your ass.” 

———-

His phone rings. 

He struggled to pull it from his sweater pocket, crashing his elbow into the cinderblock wall. 

Sylvie. 

“Hello?”

He hears her sniffle. 

“Sylvie, are you there?”

“Matt.” She lets out a breath. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called.”

“No, no. Please call. Don’t stop calling.”

That gets him a laugh. A watery weak sort of laugh. Then it’s just them and the silence along the connection. 

“My dad was in a car accident.” 

Matt’s already putting on boots. 

“It’s stupid, he’s fine, but in surgery and I’m in Indiana and everyone’s asleep.” She keeps on taking, stumbling over words, but Matt’s in the move, finding his wallet and car keys, moving silently through the sleeping quarters. 

“What hospital are you guys in?”

She tells him, and then carries on talking. 

“I’m just freaking out. He’s fine it’s going to be fine.”

“It’s going to be fine, Sylvie.” Matt parrots. He’s at Boden’s door, the lights are on the chief is at his desk. 

He hears a voice on the other end of the line, Sylvie replies to a question he can only half hear. 

“I have to go,” she says to him, “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“You’re not a bother. You’re never a bother.”

But she’s gone and Boden is looking at him. 

“I have to go. Can you cover for me until a relief can make it in?”

Boden looks at the clock, “is everything okay?”

“Sylvie needs me.”

His face falls into an understanding expression, and he waves Matt off. 

————-

Matt doesn’t even stop for gas until he’s in Indiana. Asking quick directions at the Gas’N Go north of Fowlerton. It’s almost 4 AM when he parks at the Gerry Hiebert Memorial Hospital and heads inside. It’s a small one story building, mostly dark and empty, but a nurse gives him directions to the surgery waiting room. 

Her head is in her hands. 

“Sylvie.”

When he says her name she sits up, surprised to hear her name, surprised to see him. She doesn’t even stand before she is just crumbling. Matt goes to her, kneels in front of her chair, slides his hands up her neck and rests his forehead against hers. Sylvie tucks her face into the crook of his neck. Puts her cold fingers to his ears. Cries on him. 

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, “I’ve got you.”

She’s in a pair of fleece pyjamas. Red plaid. Hair half pulled back, no makeup on her face, her jacket acting as a blanket. 

“What happened?”

“My dad was driving home from ice fishing when he hit some ice. He has a collapsed lung.” She just kind of looks at him. “What are you doing here Matt?” He thinks she said that with wonder, he hopes it wonder. 

“You called. I answered.”

Her blue eyes are his favourite blue. 

“I messed up.”

She nods. 

“I can’t miss out on whatever this could be.”

Sylvie nods. 

“I am so sorry, Sylvie.”

She buries her face back into his neck. 

They share a few precious words, fresh and delicate, and Matt finds himself in the hospital chair beside her, with her pressed against his left side. He has his left arm draped across her, hand on her thigh while she clings to him.

“Matt,” she whispers, “I’m so glad you came.”

That is how her mother and Kyle find them when they return from the cafeteria a few moments later. Matt’s arms protectively around her, and her sleeping on his shoulder. The sight of his old chaplain sends a momentary jolt of panic down Matt’s spine, but then there’s Sylvie asleep on his shoulder. 

“Casey.” Chaplain Sheffield says, eyes flying to Matt’s hand on Sylvie’s leg. 

“Chaplain.” Casey nods, eyes sliding to the woman beside him, he tilts his head towards Sylvie’s sleeping form, and smiles. “Mrs. Brett.” 

She is equally surprised, but smiles kindly at Matt. Her and Kyle sit down on chairs facing them. Matt wants to ask why Sheffield is there, but resists. Wants to tell him to leave, that he’s got this, but he reigns it in. 

In her sleep Sylvie turns her face into his shoulder, wraps her arms tighter around his, and lets out a gust of air. 

It’s okay. He’s got this. 

————-

It’s 6 AM when the surgeons come out, 7 when Mrs. Brett, (please call me Denise,) finally convinces Sylvie to go home and get some more sleep. Kyle stays with Denise, and Matt shepherds Sylvie into his truck and then into her house. She asleep on her feet. He helps her take her coat off, helps her pull her boots off, her hands on his shoulders while he kneels before her. Hangs up his own coat and follows her up the stairs. 

Follows her right into a pale blue room, with a double bed and rumpled silver blue sheets. She’s pulling the covers up and over her while he just stands there. Uncomfortable. Uncertain. 

“Matt.”

Sylvie’s voice is feather light. 

“Matt, come to bed.”

She watches as he removes his work pants, elbows his way out of his Captains shirts, so he’s just standing there mostly in her doorway in his boxers and a tee shirt, clothing clutched awkwardly in front of him. He clears his throat. 

“Matt, I’m tired.”

That settle things. He dumps his clothes on a chair in one corner and gingerly joins her in bed. He’s half off the bed, hesitant to get to close. She reaches for him, pulling him closer. Her fleece pyjamas are warm under his hands, she settle herself mostly in top of him, which is nice. Matt strokes her messy hair until her breathing evens out. 

He joins her soon after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are we back on track?


	7. Keep your Head Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking around!!! Last chapter I listened to A lot of Amos Lee while I wrote, this time I had more of a Ben Howard vibe.

It is not uncommon for Matt to wake up with a nightmare. He was diagnosed with PTSD years ago. It is uncommon for him to wake up because someone is burrowing into his side, like Sylvie is. She’s wrapped around him, her head on his shoulder, his right thigh crooked up and sandwiched between her legs, and her left arm lying across his chest. 

Her bandaged arm.

Kissing it seems like the right idea. 

“You’re obsessed with my wrist.”

Matt considers laughing it off, but unsteady replies in a gravely voice, “that’s the arm you broke when I called you into the mattress fire. I am never going to get tired of kissing it.” 

“Is that want freaked you out?” Sylvie’s voice is quiet in the mid morning sun, reserved. “At the hospital?”

So they’re having that conversation. 

Matt shifts, slips an arm under Sylvie, adjusting them so they are more face to face. 

“I mean, yes.” Sylvie’s eyes are so damn blue. “But also no.” Matt’s afraid that if he doesn’t say it, he might lose the nerve. 

“I thought about asking you out last year. After you and the chaplain broke up, but before you got engaged.” A noise like a question breaks his concentration. “Seriously. I was going to ask you to a firefighter ball I was going to with Boden.”

“You just kept on popping up in my mind. How we want the same things and how you handle yourself on calls. I think I knew I was in trouble, real trouble, after that game night. I just wanted to keep talking to you.”

Sylvie’s fingers have slide under the sleeve of his undershirt, absently stroking his skin. 

“You were this bright spot. And I kept chickening out.”

“You told me I was good with Kyle!”

“I never claimed to be smart about my feelings!”

“And then when you got hurt in the mattress fire, I kind of lost the few brain cells I had left. I feel like I’m the one who broke your arm.”

“You didn’t.” She reminds him. 

“Gabby.” He says the name out-loud, Sylvie shrinks away from him, but he holds onto her. “I know you told me that if I didn’t go I would regret it, but I think what I needed to do was have a chance to make a choice.”

Her eyes are hurt, so Matt struggles to explain. 

“I never felt like I was in on the choices in our relationship. Gabby did what she felt was right, and never checked in with what I wanted.”

It’s a lot to confess. A lot to rehash in bed, but maybe that makes the conversation easier, the way they’re facing each other. 

“I know it’s messed up, but when she showed up it was a chance for me to get closure. I got to call the shot for once, and leave on my terms.”

“And what happens to me,” Sylvie swallows, “to us if she comes back again?”

“I don’t want to go backwards. I want to move forwards, with you.”

Sylvie’s not saying anything, just looking at him, and Matt feels like this could be the moment where the rest of his life begins. 

“Thanks for the flowers.” 

They’re both grinning, the moment has slipped from something heavy with ghosts to something full of promise. Matt really wants to kiss her. He wants to pull her underneath him and really kiss her, in ways that are all kinds of inappropriate in her childhood bedroom in her parents house. Instead she kisses him, rolls him underneath her and leans over him leaving lazy kisses up his neck and down the side of his head, her hands pulling him closer. 

Casey can’t really help it if he shifts and now Sylvie is straddling him a little, his hands up the back of her fleece pyjamas. It’s just inching past the line towards indecency when they hear the crunch of tires up the driveway. Sylvie’s wiggling off of him and over to the window, pyjamas significantly more than rumpled then her mom needs to see. 

“It’s my mom and Kyle.”

Matt sits up, watching as Sylvie shucks of her shirt, back to him as she pulls on a bra, and then a tank top before zipping the sweater he gave her days ago at 89. He nearly passes out when she shimmies out of her bottoms and puts on black tights, hoping from foot to foot to pull them up. 

When he looks back up, she smiling at him like she knows exactly what she is doing. 

“Get dressed.” Her eyes slid to the chair holding his work clothes. “I’ll go make us some coffee.”

She’s at the door when he finally gets out of bed, and then she’s back, slipping her arms around his neck, standing on her tip toes and smiling while she kisses him. 

Downstairs the door opens and Denise calls her daughters name, “coming!” Sylvie calls, pulling back from Matt, a satisfied smile on her face. 

————-

Matt comes downstairs in his rumpled work clothes, after he swished some mouth wash he found in the bathroom around his mouth. Denise and Kyle are seated at the table in the kitchen, while Sylvie stands beside the coffee maker, a fresh pot is brewing. He hesitates in the doorway, but smiles when he see that Sylvie has already put out four mugs on the table. She is always making space for him. 

“Mrs. Brett, chaplain.” Matt greets them, and they say good morning in return. 

“Coffee.” Sylvie comes up behind Matt, places her soft hand on the back of his neck and pours out four mugs of hot liquid. She slides the cream towards Matt, and sugar towards her mom. Kyle is watching her hand. 

“Dad is going to be okay.” Denise repeats the news she must have already given Sylvie, “they think they will be releasing him day after tomorrow.” 

“That is great news.” Matt takes a long swig of coffee, under the table Sylvie has found his free hand on his thigh. She is smiling. 

“Thanks for the coffee, but I’ve got to go.” The chaplain stands up, awkwardly tall with the rest of them sitting. “Let me know if you need anything.” He pats Denises shoulder and gives Matt and Sylvie a resigned look. 

Sylvie jumps up to let him out, comes back to the table and leans against Matt, her hip pressed into his shoulder. 

“Mom, you should get some sleep. Well wake you up for dinner and take some in to Dad at the hospital.”

Denise nods, get sup with her untouched coffee and places it in the sink. Sylvie joins her, skids her arms around her in a hug, but looks back brightly at Matt. Denise stops as she leaves the kitchen, and looks long and hard at Matt. 

“Thank you for coming to be with my daughter.”

There is a tightness in Matt’s throat. Denise’s eyes flick to the flowers on the pass through, and back to Matt before she leaves the room. 

When he hears her tread on the stair Matt turns to Sylvie, she is seated beside him, one foot resting on her chair, he reaches out and pulls her chair closer. 

“I thought you’d like the sunflowers.”

Instead of replying Sylvie leans in and kisses him. 

————-

They make dinner plans, between turns showering and heated make out session that leaves both of them a little frustrated and definitely hot and bothered. Kissing Sylvie in the snow on a street in Chicago is nothing like kissing her with her warm and pliant body under his on a couch. Or as she comes from the shower with her hair dripping, and just a towel and his clothes between them. She makes this noise when he kisses her neck, that frankly should be illegal. 

“You have to drive home tomorrow.”

He’s in the kitchen chopping up an onion while she is kissing his back, arms around his midsection, nose resting on his shoulder blade. 

“I could call...”

She cuts him off, “no, I feel better about 51 when you’re there.”

Matt puts the knife down, turns in her arms and leans back, pulling her into him. 

“Ok.”

He knows she’s thinking about Otis. 

“For the record I feel better when you have my back, too.”

Her smile is blindingly bright. 

They eat in the kitchen with Denise, and Matt watches them pack up dinner for Sylvie’s dad. He knows Sylvie is adopted, but her facial expression mirror her mother, and they both hold onto their wrists when they talk. 

Matt drives them to the hospital, Sylvie presses against him in his truck, her mittened hand resting intermittently on his thigh. 

Bruce, her dad, is groggy and appreciative for the “real food”, but he still manages to stare down Matt as Sylvie introduces him. They get home a little after 10, and Denise retires to her room right away, but Sylvie and Matt unload the dishwasher and wipe down the counters. 

“I’m really glad you called.”

“Thank you for answering.”

“I promise, I always will.”

——————

It’s a little after 7 when Matt wakes up, Sylvie is tucked under his arm, facing away from him. The rise and fall of her breath tells him that he is in love with her. This is not just a relationship, this is the last relationship he wants to be in. He is already thinking of the next thing for them, how he wants to always wake up with her, and how he can picture blonde haired babies with her delicate nose. 

They already talked, and he planned to leave by noon, but he doesn’t want to leave her. Can’t picture a day without her. Dreads leaving her here, even when he knows he is coming back. 

When Matt gets back to Chicago he stops in at a car audio shop and buys a blue tooth adapter for his truck.


	8. Say My Name a Little Louder

Being apart from her is a new kind of torture. Matt can only think about the way she sighs in her sleep, and the way she packed a little snack for his ride home. Luckily it’s the best kind of shift; busy, physical calls, with great chances to guide Gallo and see Kidd grow. 

The night is slow, which means when shift ends he’s rested and ready to hit the road. 

Matt calls Sylvie as he pulls away from the firehouse, she answered on the third ring, and they talk the whole time he drives to her. 

It’s mid morning when he pulls up to her parents house, there are no cars in the driveway, Sylvie told him that her mom was at the hospital with her dad. She’s in the doorway to greet him, dancing from the cold, Matt tosses his bag inside and swing her up and around, dragging her in the house. He presses her into the closed door, hands working at the belt on her cardigan. 

“Matt,” Sylvie sighs into his mouth, hands pulling at his shirt. 

“I love you.”

They both freeze, stopping for a moment, just looking at each other. 

“You love me?”

Her voice is soft and tender when she asks. 

“I love you.” Matt repeats, grinning into her bright face. 

She’s speechless, until she isn’t. 

“That’s good, because I love you.”

Warmth explodes in his chest. 

——————  
——————

Sylvie is sad to leave her sunflowers behind, but she wants to leave with Matt, and not wait another 24 hours before she sees him again. Honestly, she is surprised at how well her Dad is doing, and how not difficult it is to leave him if she’s leaving with Matt. 

Matt who loves her. 

Matt who told her he loved her and then, well then he took her upstairs and showed her how much he loved her. When she came home to Fowlerton to wallow and recover she didn’t think that Matt would be bringing her home. 

Sylvie is so, so, so glad he is. 

“I know you haven’t spent a night at home in almost a week, but Cruz just messaged that he’s staying at Chloe’s and we’d have the place to ourselves.” Sylvie cajoles, sliding farther across his bench seat to lean on his shoulder. He wraps a hands around her left wrist, a silent I love you.

Matt laughed. 

“Okay,” he answers, easy. Happy. Hers. 

————-

Matt stops the truck about a block away from the house, keeping the heat running, as he nervously looks at Sylvie. 

“We don’t have to say anything.”

Sylvie is always saying the right thing. No, not necessarily the right thing, but she always has the right message. What she is really saying is this:

‘I’m with you. We’re making these choices together.’

He loves her. 

“Honestly, I’m mostly worried about what Kidd will do to me if I screw this up.”

Grabbing her bag, Sylvie hops out of the truck, “nah, the one you really have to worry about it Foster.”

Casey joins her on the sidewalk, where she smiling up at him. He takes her left hand in his right, lifts it to his mouth and kisses a line from her jacked clad wrist to elbow. They walk to the house together, and everybody is too busy hugging Sylvie and passing her around to say anything about them. 

————

It’s dinner time, Gallo is serving up mostly burnt grilled cheese with tomato soup, but the entire shift is there. Which after the business of today is a bit of a miracle. Matt is reading the paper, but his knee is firmly pressed into Sylvie as she sits beside him talking about a book with Foster. 

It’s nice. 

“Excuse me?” The little voice catches everyone’s attention, it’s the boy from the car accident/basement collapse. 

Sylvie is up and out of her chair, “Otis!”

The little kid shyly steps behind an older woman, who takes control of the situation. 

“My grandson and I wanted to come down and personally thank you.” Sylvie is silently crying, smiling encouraging at Otis. “We’ve has a rough year, and we are grateful for how you helped our Otis.”

Otis steps back out front, points to a Tupperware container in his grandma’s hands. 

“We made cookies. Oatmeal raisin.”

Sylvie is beaming, “that’s my favourite!”

“Mine too!” Otis cries. 

Boden comes out and shakes hands, Casey watches as Otis is passed around. Gets a picture with Brett and then Gallo and Ritter are showing him the apparatus floor, and the only thought he can muster is how proud of Sylvie he is. 

Otis and his grandma leave a little after 7, not long before Foster and Brett get called out to a kitchen injury. This leaves Casey time to do paperwork, which is why Severide finds him in his bunk room, bent over the desk. 

“Hey, stranger.” Kelly says, tossing mail in front of Matt and then plopping down on his bed. 

“I haven’t been gone that long.”

Kelly just raises his brows, smiling, leaning forward so his leather clad elbows are propped on his knees. 

“I’ll be back on squad next shift.”

“How’d you swing that?”

Matt swivels around to face him, opening a few bills and sorting his mail pile. 

“Struck a deal, four days with OFI a month. Pads my pay check, keeps them current and keeps me in 51.”

“Best of both worlds.”

“Looks like both of us will be happy little house husbands.”

Casey half hearted kicks out at Severide as he leaves the bunk room, both of them laughing. 

Though the laugher catches in his throat a moment later when opens a letter form his insurance company. He’d been waiting in a final number as they catalogued and paid him out on his renters insurance from his apartment fire from last year. 

All of his worldly possessions boiled down to a slip of paper. A slip of paper worth 60k. Matt thinks of the town house for sale near his current Reno job, and feels something like promise bloom in his chest. 

————

It’s nearly 4 am and for the first time since dinner they are both in the house, not filing paperwork, not scrubbing off soot, not doing something. Matt is tossing and turning on his cot, Sylvie slips in, draws the blinds and settles on top of him. 

“Hi.” She breathes. 

Humfph, Matt breathes out, “I couldn’t sleep.” Sylvie wiggles a little, kisses his shoulder, in the dark he finds her left hand, and kisses her wrist. “This is better.”

They’re both just starting to drift off, when Matt tells her they’re going out for breakfast. 

“I’m not sharing my French Toast.”

————

Matt has just finished levelling a cabinet set at the house he’s renovating, when his cell phone rings. 

“Sylvie, you here?”

“I am, come let me in, I’ve got Pad Thai.”

He greets her with a kiss, and they set up a make shift table by his tools. It’s cozy. Domestic. 

Sylvie’s face is curious as she looks around, “How’d you get this job, again?”

“I did a kitchen Reno for their son a few years ago, and now the parents are redoing their kitchen while they’re in Florida so they can sell it when they get home.”

She’s nodding, as she looks at the samples he has laid out. 

“I like the blue.”

“They picked that one, too.” 

“These old houses are the best. I like the character.” 

Matt agrees. Good bones, that’s what his Dad always said about house like these. He looks around and thinks about the size. 

It’s almost a heritage house, older than he is, the couple who own it have kept it clean, but not up to date. When he finishes the kitchen the rest of the house will no longer match, but he was able to help them and directed to quality fixtures and finishing that will help it sell. It’s a kitchen he would like. 

The house is one he would like. Unfinished basement, detached garage/shop out back, original wood floor under 1950’s carpet, four bedrooms, three baths, an original wood staircase. Windows need updating, but the front door is solid. The outside needs paint, but there are no leaks. Large yard. 

Sylvie nudges him, “where’d you go?”

“I think I’m going to buy a house.”

“What?”

Matt explains about the insurance check, how he is tired of living with roommates, he finished it off by saying, “seems like the right next step.”

Beside him she bounces, “Matt, you know my love of design shows! I’ll help! You’re letting me help.” In the back of his mind, there is a picture forming of a house, and a family... and at the centre of it, Sylvie.


End file.
